"Cultural" Victory Impractical?

[ackum]

I continue to be mystified by the purpose behind Cultural Victory. *Three* cities with 50000 culture? It's so hard to achieve, it seems totally impractical.

To make a long story short and not bore you with details, I'm Rome, it's Noble level, and it's about 1880 AD. I have three cities with high enough culture output that I could *probably* eke out a cultural victory sometime around 1970. But to get to that point, I had to expand my empire (mostly by warmongering) so that my gold and science income could support a 40% science/60% culture split at a point where I'm about 8-10 techs ahead of the other opponents (and thus can afford to slip a little). But now that I'm at this point, it'd actually be easier to simply go for the conquest victory, or even to stop worrying about culture in the three main cities, go back to a 90%science/10% gold split, and go for the space race victory...

Has anyone ever gotten a cultural victory that went in that direction because it was the easiest path to winning? Because in my limited experience, there's almost no chance you can pull it off unless you dominate every aspect of the game, from technology (to be the 1st to grab religions) to production (to grab the wonders) to military (to have cities that can generate extra commerce and military might so your 3 cities can concentrate on culture). And if you're dominating the game to that degree, when is it not just easier to stick a fork in your opponents and call them done?

Enlighten me. Please.

[Bain]

I'm not good at war mongering and with civs / religions spread in certain ways a diplomatic victory was outright impossible (Aztecs, Incas, Japan and all 3 different religions)

I don't know what size your empire was, but I just had a noble win at 1970 or something with 3 legendary cities. I totally dropped research at some point (great scientists kept things going, though) and at 1940 I was actually attacked by Tokugawa, yet fended him off easily with equal tech military (he kinda burned all units trying to attack an 80% city with 3 redcoats, artillery weakning him and 3 cavalerys striking infrequently)

I've attached a savegame of that game for you.

[walkerjks]

Here's a thread I put together about getting cultural wins on Monarch and Emperor using only 6 cities. It's a strategy based on commerce rather than culture, since you can easily turn commerce into culture. For what it's worth, my earliest cultural win is 1854 AD.

But to answer your question, if you wait until 1800 AD or later to start going for a cultural win, you are probably in better position for a different type of win (domination or space).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138647

[MikeH]

Actually you don't need wonders or a lot of cities to win a culture victory, just three relgions (you don't have to found them, but it's easier if you found at least one) and 6-9 cities and a lot of great artists. However you do need to plan for it from early in the game and the conditions need to be right, if you are stuck alone or with just one other civ on a continent, it's probably not on. Also some Civs are better at it than others, England with Liz and Cathy with Russia are favourites.

Walkerjks explains it much better than me in this article:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138647

Edit - He's also posting at the same time as me as well .

[UnspokenRequest]

The problem here is that most victory conditions are quite boring actually. Cultural victory is only the worst of them all because you have to renounce to everything that made your empire great in order to achieve the conditions. A high cultural % usually means, no science, no military might and low income = a perfect pray for a competing AI.

What is fun about this game is getting to be powerful (through whatever means you chose to take), but, more often then not, I have to think about victory conditions once I am way ahead of everyone else. At this point, my empire is so ahead of everyone else that winning becomes a given. Only, it is a tedious one. Most of the time, I know I'll win 150 to 200 turns before getting to the victory. These turns lack challenge. I have to micromanage my empire in order to achieve the chosen victory conditions. It can be quite dull. It's like fighting an AI that has virtually no chance of winning. It's boring because the result is obvious. It's just a question of how long will it take.

My favorite games are the one when I have the lead, but I have to deal with close competitors. On single player it doesn't happen very often.
For those wondering. I play on Prince. I don't like when the AI cheat becomes too obvious. It spoils the fun.

[MaskedFrog]

I played FDR recently on a Noble Standard Lakes map and went for a Cultural victory. You really have to start planning for this type of victory very early. I made 4 cities and concentrated on anyting that could produce culture. Right before getting Democracy I switched the Culture slider to 100%. I had one city producing all the military units for the region and was surrounded on all sides. I gave in to every demand from the AI and tried to keep good relations with everyone. I did have on minor war after flipping one of Gengis Kahns, cities. He quickly took it back and I eventually bribed him with tech for peace. It was the early 1900s when I won.

Playing for a culture win requires planning your strategy right from the start. Personally I find it a nice challenge especially if I do not have one of the better civs for the culture win. (I almost always play a random civ.)

[Magnumaniac]

Religion, Religion, Religion is the key to a cultutral victory. Go for it from the start, spread & build temples to every religion you can in every city. With 9 cities each having 6 temples you can have 6 cathedral's in each of your 3 culture cities - when combined with Free Speech that's a 400% increase on culture output in those cities.

Earliest culture victory I have achieved so far is late 1500's on Monarch (for 124K points). Trying to beat it on my current game and looking good for a 1300's finish if I can keep it peaceful.

[Bain]

The problem here is that most victory conditions are quite boring actually. Cultural victory is only the worst of them all because you have to renounce to everything that made your empire great in order to achieve the conditions. A high cultural % usually means, no science, no military might and low income = a perfect pray for a competing AI.

I have to disagree here. if you look at my savegame, I'm not behind on tech, I'm not poor and I definatly could mop the floor with tokugawa if I wanted to, and I certainly didn't have a good start with Stone being far away (had to expand second city first, pyramids were build without stone bonus) and marble being nonexistant.

As I said, I actually got attacked at 40k culture in York by a large force and fended it off easily, plus taking a large city by force 1 year after the cultural victory.

My favorite games are the one when I have the lead, but I have to deal with close competitors. On single player it doesn't happen very often.
For those wondering. I play on Prince. I don't like when the AI cheat becomes too obvious. It spoils the fun.

The AI isn't cheating, the AI is simply given tools you're not. This is clearly stated in the difficulty description as well =P

[ackum]

Good post, walkerjs. Don't know why I missed that before...I certainly looked everywhere for a good thread that talked about Cultural Victories.

In the aforementioned game, it was my intent from turn 1 to achieve a cultural victory, as it's the only one I haven't yet achieved. But reading your strategy, I'd say my biggest mistake was the lack of cultivating Great Artists. I didn't think about using Artist specialists to do this. Also, my early game strategy involved rushing to the religions, and along the way I couldn't resist the allure of building Stonehenge and The Oracle and using Great Prophets for early shrine income - I can see now the downside of this was the lowering of my percentage for generating Great Artists (I founded Hinduism, Confucianism, Christianity, Taoism, and Islam, and STILL ended up with more Great Prophets than shrines to use them for). Your strategy of not founding any religions makes way more sense. Food for thought...

[Wodan]

I also disagree that a cultural victory requires you to stint on military or tech.

They key to a cultural win IMO is simply having built a couple of wonders and having 4-5 religions in your civ (I don't think you have to have started those religions yourself).

Play your game normally, but pick 3 cities with a good mix of production and commerce-producting tiles. Flood plains surrounded by grassland hills would be ideal. Build all your wonders (that produce culture) in those 3 cities and only those 3.

When you get religions, build monasteries and spread the religions to all your cities.

It helps if you have exactly 9 cities. Build temples to each and every religion in each and every city. This will enable you to build cathedrals to all religions in your 3 key cities. Cathedrals are +50% culture.

Build all other culture-producing buildings of course. You don't have to build them early, just make sure you've built them all by 1800 or thereabouts. By then you should start planning the moment when you're going to move your culture slider to 100%. If you can do it by 1875 AD that'd be good. If you're much past 1900 AD then you risk an AI getting a Dip or Space victory out from under you.

And yes: Great Artists go into those 3 cities as Specialists (not building great works).

When you move your culture slider to 100%, you should be able to get 1000 culture per turn in each of your 3 cities. Easy math will tell you how many turns you need before you'll get your win.

Wodan

[Wodan]

Note that, since you're getting 1000 culture per turn, any culture you got in the game up until then is strictly chump change. Yes it helps a bit, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to build a University before a Forge or anything like that.

Wodan

[Krikkitone]

Originally Posted by Wodan

And yes: Great Artists go into those 3 cities as Specialists (not building great works).Wodan

Well that depends on When those GA are created, the closer they are to the end the better it is to sleep them and then add them in for a finishing touch.

[walkerjks]

Originally Posted by ackum

Your strategy of not founding any religions makes way more sense. Food for thought...

I'm not actually as anti-religion as that post suggests. But it really depends on the difficulty level for me. You can found 6 religions at noble pretty consistently. You can even found 4 religions at Emperor most of the time.

The main problem I have with the religion-based strategy is all the techs you have to defer in order to grab religions at Emperor level. Plus, you still have to spread the religions, build the temples, and build the cathedrals to take full advantage of the religions. I had one game where I had 5 different religions in my empire before 1000 AD (I only founded 1 of them and 4 of them spread). I didn't come close to maxing out the cathedrals in this game before I won.

If you do go for a religion-based strategy, I would suggest the Incans (financial, starts with Mysticism, and has a great can-build-from-turn-one UU). You can found Hinduism and Judaism in the normal way, and possibly leverage The Oracle and/or an early great prophet (from Stonehenge or The Oracle) for another 1 or 2 religions. The Buddhist holy city might also be close enough to capture with your quechas.

[apdavis828]

Well just won my first game ever... cultural victory. Noble level, Egyptians with Spiritual and Creative. I had my first city do all prophet GP and produce as many wonders as possible but no wonders for artists or engineers. 2nd city all engineering GP and engineering wonders and parthenon for increase in engineer GP so I can hurry more wonders. Third city all artist wonders, etc. Founded 3 religions built every religious improvement possible in all cities and totally dominated the wonders (got every one until late in the game). Then started plopping down GP artists! By the time the AI caught up in tech and started getting wonders it was too late... I had three legendary cities (25000 if you play on quick) around 2000 AD.